RUNNNN!

I listen to slam poetry because I like being irrevocably moved by a particularly good line or a delivery that leaves me awestruck. So, in layman’s terms, I listen to a lot of sad and/or hopeful-for-the-future mental health things and sappy romantic things (many of which are also sad). In the past year or so, however, I’ve been gradually widening my narrow scope to include material dealing with social conflict. One of the first pieces I actively enjoyed was this one.

This work not only addresses race in film and the American society as a whole, but it does so in a humorous fashion using two speakers. That’s something that really interested me as well. I don’t come across a lot of poetry shared between multiple people (outside of the obvious poet-audience relationship are the sort of one-sided relationship of found poetry). It can be argued that editing each other’s poetry is a way of sharing work, but there’s clearly a difference. I think it’s really awesome that these two men crafted something like this together. Delivering this poem with two people not only magnifies the volume of the poem, but the message as well. One voice isn’t experiencing this, it’s two…it’s many…it’s an entire race of people in this nation.

Would you consider writing a poem with another person/multiple people? What kind of message do you think is sent when poetry is created like this?